


Someone to Watch Over Me

by sunlightsmarrow



Series: Nobody Said It Was Easy [3]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Steve is the momma hen who is actually in creepy love with her chick, The Winter Soldier - Freeform, bucky basically looses his shit, haha - Freeform, mentions of more of the marvel universe, or at least about as heavy as I get, slightly suicidal bucky, this is heavy oh my
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-09
Updated: 2014-05-09
Packaged: 2018-01-24 02:13:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1587884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunlightsmarrow/pseuds/sunlightsmarrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone has to go to the hospital after Bucky has issues, but he truly isn't any different than the rest of the people that Steve knows.  It just hurts more because he used to be the only person Steve knew.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Someone to Watch Over Me

Bucky sunk into the sheets and the soft mattress. Careful of his arm, he snuggled under the covers and found it more comfortable than his bed in a faraway home, or at least what he thought he remembered of it. 

He still wanted that place, back when Steve was a tiny guy and all he had to worry about was protecting him 'til the end of the line. Back when he was an honestly good Catholic boy whose hand would run up girls skirts at parties, if the girls were so inclined. He remembered the things he had shared with people on that bed, from reading comics with Steve to missing and fumbling around with girls to getting the talk that went something like, "James, you're a man now and being a man means certain responsibilities." None of those responsibilities included being put on ice and getting brainwashed into murdering his best friend as a 'mission'. 

This bed was suffocating him, giving him time to think and right now, time to think was too dangerous. For the whole five minutes that it should have taken Bucky to fall asleep, he bet Steve would have expected, he felt a pang in his gut. The smell of the sheets, like they had been cleaned recently and that they were the cocoon for another body filled him with unease. This comfort was discomforting.

He threw the covers across the room and gently set his feet on the floor. For the first time in too long, it didn't shock his toes. He gripped the side of the mattress and leaned forward. He traced the grain of the wood floor with his eyes, wondering if Steve would mind if he curled up near Sam, who was, if Bucky remembered correctly, ex-military as well.

So Bucky stiffly got up from the bed and padded back into the living room. A light was on on the kitchen, but he heard no sounds, so he moved to the chasm between the couch and chair. Steve was curled on his side and Sam was stretched along the side of the couch. Steve wasn't a sidecar kind of guy, Bucky recalled. Of course he wouldn’t let Sam sleep on the floor by himself. 

Bucky laid down between the two of them and soon flopped onto his stomach. He turned his head to face Steve and fell peacefully asleep.

~~~

The next day was a day that Bucky would never forget. He awoke to a sore arm and the most heavenly smell he had encountered in recent memory. He rolled over and stared at the ceiling and watching the fan go around. It made a soft whirring sound and and rocked in its setting, softly and repetitively and it felt like someone was caressing Bucky with how it went about like nothing was wrong in the world. It was so quietly perfect that the man wanted to go back to sleep as if nothing was out of the ordinary.

“‘Mornin’, Sleeping Beauty.” Sam was sitting on the couch and Bucky turned his head at the sound of his voice. The man wore a white tee shirt and black jeans and looked rather comfortable for a normal day. He was sipping on a cup of coffee and eating a danish. Some crumbs fell onto his stomach and Bucky studied them with curiosity. 

“Good morning,” he replied stiffly. He blinked and sat up. His shirt was skewed; it fell over the shoulder of his human arm. He brought his arm to his lap, cradling it carefully. “Do you think we can get this fixed today?” He half-yelled it into the kitchen, asking both of the occupants. Bucky realized that this was the first time in a long while that he had really tried to communicate like that. For a moment, he felt like there wasn’t a war inside of him. 

“I was thinking we’d get some real food in you, first,” said Steve as he came out of the kitchen. He had an omelette and some fruit on a plate and placed it on the coffee table next to Bucky. It smelled divine and Bucky hastily picked up the fork with his metal arm. It scraped against the plate and the cheese stretched as Bucky cut a piece. It was almost sweet in his mouth. He really needed to get used to the food being good or else he’d never really get anything else done.

“I can live with that,” he replied, a smile that felt too good to be true crossing his face. Steve blinked at him and grinned. Steve glanced at Sam, whose eyes were alight with interest in the development. Bucky didn’t fail to notice the change in the air. Steve’s voice jumped up in tone as if it were Christmas and he had just gotten a new drawing set.

“And then we should head over to the hospital. We ought to get that arm fixed.” Steve sat down on the floor across the table from Bucky, whose face fell. He moved the food around on his plate and wiped his nose on the back of his hand. He felt his toes curl around the long shag in the carpet and his jaw tightened. Bucky knew that Steve was referring to his broken human arm, but at the same time, he wondered how maybe Sam thought of that, in regard to his metal arm. He didn’t want any of it, and he hoped they both understood that, but at the same time brainwashing wasn’t exactly the most convincing excuse for doing terrible things. He knew if they were two different people that he wouldn't be sitting their living room but in a cell waiting to be sentenced to death, but death still seemed like an imminent sentence. Bucky knew that he had no control over his actions, but the disconnect between the person screaming and the voice that screamed were too distinct for him. 

“I agree,” he murmured. He pushed his plate away and stood, but was off balance and fell back a little. He had to stick his foot behind him to catch himself and Sam’s hand was on the small of his back, firm, and thumb on his skin like fire on a dry leaf. He let the flame engulf him. “Can I borrow some clothes?” He shifted his weight forward a little but and Sam dropped his hand. The burn of supportive skin-on-skin contact remained.

“I got this, Cap. He’s more my size, anyway.” Sam got up and brushed past Bucky, who was standing there with a similar expression to the first time he screamed at Steve through the Winter Soldier’s eyes.

“How ya doin’, Buck?” Steve’s voice sounded like Bucky was about to get scolded and he visibly deflated. Steve stepped a little toward him and Bucky took that cue to follow Sam to his bedroom, nearly pushing Steve out of the way in the process. A “Buck!” came from him, but it fell on deaf ears. This was too much. The temptation was great to start breaking things and hurting people, but Steve would be disappointed in him and his conscience had enough of a grip on its remnants that he could resist. 

When he stepped into Sam’s room, though, the ex-soldier, when he met his eyes, recoiled a little in fear. He gently tossed the clothes across the bed and shrunk to a small size. Bucky’s pulse thundered in his ears and he was desperately clawing at something, maybe trying to focus on the pain in his arm but it was so dulled by adrenaline that he hardly noticed it. He wanted to speak but all of a sudden he was moving and charging at Sam and he grabbed him by the neck and threw him across the room. His gait changed and the voices screaming were just echoing in the Winter Soldier’s ears, entirely unheeding. He bed gave through his weight but the perfect balance of the murderer inside compensated so gracefully that Bucky thought that if he were himself, he would be floating. 

Bucky was throwing himself against the mental walls and he gripped Sam with his human arm and rose his clenched metal fist, landing a square punch to his temple, silencing a yelp. He dropped to the floor in a heap and Bucky was swearing and cursing and kicking and screaming for something to _‘please goddamn it help!’_

Steve came into view, eyes turned so defensive and hurt that Bucky wanted to strangle a puppy instead of knee Steve over his stomach and throw him headfirst onto the bed and into the closet. He didn’t want to prowl over the bed and hold Steve up close to his face, seeing the terror and agony in his eyes as he slammed Steve’s head against the hardwood floor and as he held Steve in a stranglehold, Bucky was screaming so loud that it was all the Winter Soldier could do to keep him back. The grip weakened from the mental struggle and Steve managed to slam his knee into Bucky’s groin region and, regardless of any sort of strength training he had received, floor him. The smell of blood filled his nose and his eyes watered. His senses were sharp and a cry like Mary at Christ’s death filled the apartment.

“Is he alive, Christ, Steve, I don’t know what happened. Go check on---fuck!” His arm felt like jelly. He screamed in agony and rolled onto his back. “Hospital. We gotta go!”

There was a moment of silence, then, “Operator, yes, I need to report an accident.” 

~~~

Bucky should have known. He sat in Steve’s apartment with the aforementioned man sitting next to him. Sam had a fractured skull and was in critical condition, but Bucky had managed to get his arm cast and Steve had talked them out of charges or taking Bucky down to the station. 

He should have known that he was a time-bomb. He should have known to keep as far away from them as possible. He should have run as soon as he realized it was Steve whistling. At least he could have said the he tried.

Steve was closer than before and Bucky could smell the blood of Sam on him and the nosebleed he got from getting his head smashed against the floor. A gentle hand rested on his knee, but Bucky tore his leg away and got up, pacing in front of the door.

He stared at the floor, wishing it would swallow him up into its anemone-like confines. “You should have killed me." A beat. "Don’t say that I’m your friend and you couldn’t because you really could, you know. You said you hated bullies and here I was trying to kill-” His words were jumbled and falling over themselves and Bucky didn't know if he could keep up coherent thought for much longer before he went insane with the weight of it all.

“That’s not you, Buck.” Steve sat up straighter and clasped his hands loosely between his knees. His bright eyes were careful as he gazed at his visibly distraught friend. “It was never you, and never will be.” Steve shivered and Bucky swallowed and ran a hand through his hair. He wiggled the fingers of his metal hand and clutched them tightly at his side. He took a few deep breaths and couldn’t close his eyes because the Winter Soldier was too close for comfort. “This is it. This is the hardest thing you’re going to do because if it was hard for me, I can’t imagine how it must be for you, but you just have to keep going. You’re made of stronger stuff, Buck.”

Bucky backed up until he hit the wall. “It’s only been a day,” he muttered. “I don’t know what I expected.”

Steve, if he had been any other person, would have been satisfied with that answer, but that wasn’t something that came out of Bucky Barnes’ mouth. For a moment, terror gripped his face worse than a few hours before when Bucky was trapped and the Soldier was laying waste to everything that Bucky loved. 

Steve got it, though. He understood how given unwarranted powers led sometimes to people wanting to die. He had seen it with Bruce and Tony and had seen how they acted and Steve felt his stomach drop. Bucky wasn’t like them, not because he was a better man or anything, but being like them would be so against his essence that Steve didn’t know what he’d do if Bucky turned out like them. 

“What can I do for you?” He couldn’t press. Bucky didn’t know that he wasn’t being himself, but then the thought occurred to Steve that maybe the Bucky Barnes he once knew was gone forever. He knew he wasn’t the same Steve Rogers he was so many years ago. It wasn’t that simple anymore. He wished that maybe his impression of Bucky wasn’t as it once was and that maybe whatever happened to his best friend would be close enough to the man he once knew to warrant and overlooking of his disconnections.

Bucky didn’t have the energy for this anymore. Steve waiting on him hand and foot was better than he had ever gotten, and it wasn’t a new serum thing, anyway. Even when he had nothing he gave of himself, and Bucky couldn’t bring himself to ask for anything when he had taken so much away. Things were nagging at him, impoverished things that needed love and time to kindle back to life because they were just embers now. He needed fuel for the fire.

“Can _I_ do anything for you?” Bucky relaxed his pose and his eyes softened. Steve's face opened to a hint of surprise and Bucky watched an idea pop into his head. 

“Come here,” beckoned Steve. He held his hand out to Bucky and Bucky pushed off of the wall and got the idea that Steve didn’t just want him to sit down, so he wrapped his metal hand around Steve’s fleshy hand and let Steve pull him down beside him. He traced the metal of his arm and was staring at the star over his fake bicep. His eyes were full of respect and a sort of awe that Bucky remembered vaguely seeing somewhere before, but for the life of him couldn't remember. 

“Put your arm around me,” said the blonde. Bucky tried to get up but was stayed with Steve’s hand on his chest and that fire was worse than with Sam even though there was a solid three millimeters between Steve’s hand and Bucky’s chest, but the warmth coming from Steve was a fire to a log cabin. Where Sam was a spark, Steve was an all-consuming hell fire. But after a moment of staring dumbly at Steve’s hand on his chest, Bucky managed to carefully place the cool metal on the back of Steve’s neck and rest on his shoulder. Just the contact itself brought a sleepy haze to Bucky's brain and calmed the demons swirling around, threatening to go off again like that morning. Steve had managed to sever the wires in the bomb. 

The beautiful thing was that it didn’t feel like something that the nuns would have been upset about. It felt natural and as Steve rested his head against Bucky’s shoulder and partly on his chest and closed his eyes, Bucky wanted to melt into the davenport. The smell of the blood seemed to melt away as the blood mixed with a scent that spoke more than blood itself: life. Everything in the past had been so careful, feather-light with Steve because he was delicate, even if he said he had the bullies on the ropes, and of course they didn’t have time to relax on the warfront, when Steve was less delicate. And then there were the calculated movements of the Winter Soldier, everything with measured precision to be the most perfect it could be without wasting energy or showing personality and for once in his recent memory Bucky felt like a human being. For once, the cold metal wasn’t so cold anymore. This felt like home.


End file.
